Type
App
Role
UX | UI
Agency
Fabrique
Creating the most accessible museum tour app possible
The Jewish Museum Frankfurt is the oldest independent Jewish museum in Germany. Spread across two locations, it provides insight into 900 years of Jewish history and offers a glimpse into the present and future of the Jewish community in Frankfurt and Europe. We designed and developed an interactive media guide that can be used at both museum locations.
The JMF Mediaguide
Users of the media guide app can follow various tours at both museum locations using their own smartphone or a loan device provided by the museum. Each tour takes visitors through different objects in the museum, each with its own unique story. This allows visitors to experience the museum and its collections in an even more immersive way.
Blending digital and physical
To ensure the app feels like an integral part of the museum experience rather than a separate tool, I designed its visual language to align seamlessly with the museum’s interior, galleries, identity, and signage. The app’s aesthetics draw inspiration from the museum’s angular architecture, its distinctive visual identity, and the way natural light interacts with the space. This cohesive design approach enhances the visitor’s journey, making the digital guide feel like a natural extension of the museum itself.
An Experience from Start to Finish
The tours in the media guide consist of a combination of texts, images, audio clips, music, and background sounds. Beyond the audio clips describing individual objects, each tour is enriched with music and ambient sounds, further immersing visitors in the stories being told.
Accessibility First
When designing the app, we prioritized accessibility for a diverse group of visitors. How do you follow a tour if you are hard of hearing, visually impaired, blind, deaf, or have limited mobility? We developed tours with sign language videos for the hearing impaired, additional audio descriptions for visually impaired visitors, and an option to avoid stairs for those with mobility challenges.
The app adapts to the preferences set on the user’s phone, including text size, contrast, and voice-over settings, making the museum and its collection more accessible to a wider audience.
Navigating Different Buildings and Multiple Floors
Due to the thick walls of the museum, using beacons to determine the user’s location was not possible. This required an alternative approach to guide users through the tours. An offline wayfinding system helps users navigate from point to point, distinguishing between those who prefer to use an elevator or stairs by their accessibility preferences.
Tested with Real Visitors
Through multiple user testing sessions and methods conducted in the museum itself, we thoroughly tested the app’s functionalities. From following tours and looking up information on individual objects to finding the restaurant or the nearest restroom—everything was extensively tested with real museum visitors, young and old. This ensures that the JMF media guide is one of the most accessible museum tour apps in the world.
And many more…
The app has many more functionalities like a map that covers multiple floors, an object finder that works with most objects in the museum, different themes for different locations and temporary expositions, it’s simply too much to showcase here on this page. Download the app on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store and see for yourself if you are interested!